Something terrible happened to me this month: I wasn’t interested in reading anything at all, and everytime I picked up a book I couldn’t focus on the page for more than two words, so obviously I thought I was dying from some very lethal and uncurable disease.

I looked it up online.

Nope!

Not dying! (Phew! I gots books to write, no time to die, pals!)

Turns out it was just a regular, yet very annoying, reading slump. I tried everything imaginable to get out of this slump, to no avail, so when the wonderful Nimika, from Wordhaven, asked me to join her in a 24-hour Readathon, it felt like the perfect idea.

I would force myself to read for 24 hours, no matter what, until I beat that slump.

And it worked!

It was my first Readathon ever, and if you’ve never heard of that, it works like this: You read for 24 hours, period.

Of course you can take breaks if you want (but why would you want that?), though the goal is to read as much as you can during these 24 hours.

Here’s how my 24 hours went:

Hour 1

Wasted 15 minutes taking a photo to tweet about the #BloggerReadathon!

Picked up A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle.

Hour 2

Read.

Hour 3

Read.

Hour 4

Read.

Hour 5

Ate a lot of food I shouldn’t have eaten and regretted it instantly.

Also, I would do it again.

Hour 6

Finished reading A Wrinkle in Time!

Wrote a post about it here, to start a book discussion because, if you hadn’t guessed that already, I love to talk books.

Hour 7

Started reading Our Dark Duet, by Victoria Schwab.

Changed my mind.

Started reading a play by Shakespeare.

Changed my mind.

Started reading The Winner’s Curse, by Marie Rutkoski.

Hour 8

Fell in love with Arin and the words of Marie Rutkoski.

Mostly Arin, let’s be real.

Hour 9

Felt my eyes getting heavy and my body starting to hate me.

Told them to shut it and kept reading.

Hour 10

Fatigue got real.

Thought I would just close my eyes for 10 minutes.

Hour 19

Woke up 9 hours later like:

Hour 20

Decided to start Our Dark Duet because Nimika said the ending would blow my mind and I couldn’t wait.

Hour 21

Read as I ate.

Hour 22

Read as I took a bath.

Hour 23

Read as I walked.

Hour 24

So my grand total wasn’t that grand (I’m a very slow reader haha). In 24 hours, I ended up finishing A Wrinkle in Time, reading 100 pages of The Winner’s Curse, and 100 pages of Our Dark Duet. But I felt like a champion because I was out of the slump! And really looking forward to finishing those two books!

(I finished TWC yesterday and omg it tore at my heart I need the sequel!)

Thank you Nimika for asking me to join you in this! It was so much fun!

And if you guys ever want to participate in a future Readathon, let us know! We’d love to complain about our lack of sleep with you on Twitter! Oh, and rave about books, of course!

This is such a good idea to get out of a reading slump!
I’ve been in one pretty bad since coming from taking a month off of the book world and I think I’ve finally broken it by forcing myself to read for quite a few hours last night!

You should definitely finish Our Dark Duet though, its amazing and that ending will throw you for a loop I promise!

I always sleep normally when I do a 24-hour readathon. I tend to read slower and not pay attention if I don’t I am so happy that doing this helped you get over your reading slump! It feels so grand when you get over one.

Ayyyy, it was truly so fun to do it! I’m such a “read it in one sitting” reader (I literally just got done with Wanderlost rn and I started it at 12 PM) so a 24 Hour Readathon is the perfect excuse to do it. I loved doing this so I’m definitely in for another readathon. Also, I Iove your hour by hour analysis- so cool! 😀

That sounds awesome! I normally pick up a book and get super invested and yell at someone who tries to engage with me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I want to try a 24 hour readathon, but I just know that I don’t have the time and that saddens me.